Whole Grain Tips

Kick-start the day with a bowl of porridge or wholegrain cereal made with milk – and top with seasonal fruit to get the goodness of a wholegrain breakfast and one of your five-a-day portions of fruit and veg too.

Alternate between different wholegrain cereals on a daily basis to keep your first meal of the day interesting.

If you’re feeling peckish mid-morning, opt for wholegrain crackers, oatcakes or rye crispbreads instead of high fat/salt/sugar snacks. To add even more variety, try them with toppings like savoury low fat cheese, or sweet fruit and low fat crème fraiche, or you could use up some leftovers in your fridge.

Lunch doesn’t have to be dull or expensive – make your own sandwiches using wholemeal bread, pittas, tortillas, flatbread or rolls.

Choose wholegrain varieties where you can. Or try half and half, like mixing wholewheat flour with white flour, wild rice with long grain rice, or brown pasta with white pasta.

If you need a quick fix before bedtime, carbohydrates in wholemeal toast can actually help poor sleepers and those with energetic lifestyles get off to sleep.

For a tasty and nutritious boost, add a handful of oats or a wheat biscuit to your smoothies or yogurts, or add barley to soups and stews.

Popcorn is a wholegrain food and makes a perfect snack now and then – just make sure it’s the plain, air-popped variety. Try flavouring your popcorn with different spices.

Cook a little extra wholegrain pasta, rice or noodles for dinner and make it into a salad for lunch the next day.

Try and eat a serving of wholegrain with each meal e.g. porridge for breakfast, wholemeal roll for lunch and wholemeal pasta for dinner.